Language Shift and Maintenance in a Diglossia Environment

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Journal of Narrative and Language Studies – December 2016, Volume 4 – Issue 7

Language Shift and Maintenance in a Diglossia Environment with Its

Educational Implications: A Case Study

Mustafa Kerem Kobul

Karadeniz Technical University, Department of Western Languages, Turkey

[email protected]

APA Citation:

Kobul, M. (2016). Language Shift and Maintenance in a Diglossia Environment with Its Educational

Implications: A Case Study.JOURNAL OF NARRATIVE AND LANGUAGE STUDIES, 4(7), 1-16.

Abstract

The study sheds light on some fundamental sociolinguistic concepts such as bilingualism and diglossia,

language shift and language maintenance with particular reference to the Amish context. After depicting a general

picture of the Amish society, the study expands on bilingualism and diglossia in the Amish community. The factors

that cause language maintenance and language shift/lossare discussed in detail under the light of relevant literature.

Based upon Conklin and Lourie’s (1983) comprehensive taxonomy of factors affecting language maintenance and

language shift, “Amish Pennsylvania German” is evaluated. Further reasons for the long survival of the Amish

society are discussed. The last section is particularly allocated to “How could the Amish society succeed in

maintaining their language and identity?” By and large, current findings substantiate that along with their

tremendous efforts to isolate themselves from the outer English speaking world, the diglossia situation has helped

the Amish to protect their language and identity without exposure to language shift in the midst of their bilingual

environment.

Key Words: Bilingualism, diglossia, language contact, identity, bilingual education

Introduction

Primordial wisdom has it that no language takes place in a vacuum

(Deumert&Vandenbussche, 2003a; Finegan, 1998). Each language is spoken within a

community either in a large or small scale and needs a society to live and survive in (Haugen,

1972). Languages are living organisms in that they are born, grown and they sometimes die

(Nevalainen, 2003; Roberge, 2003). They are also interrelated with the communities or societies

they are used in. Moreover, in some regions or societies in the world people need and/or use

more than one language to communicate for various purposes (Coulmas, 1998; Omoniyi, 2010;

Sankoff, 2002). To illustrate, in Germany, the official language is German while people from

different ethnic background or countries such as Turkey, Poland as well as Russia use their

mother tongue in their social community. Another example is Turkey where the official

language is Turkish and the majority of Turkish population use Turkish language in every

aspect of their daily life. However, some people living in the south-east of Turkey use Kurdish

Mustafa Kerem Kobul / Journal of Narrative and Language Studies – December 2016,

Volume 4 – Issue 7

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or Arabic to communicate within their community. In these kind of societies people become

bilingual (or sometimes trilingual) depending on the amount of exposure and need to the

majority language (Coulmas, 1998; Myers-Scotton, 1998; Sankoff, 2002).

Furthermore, languages do not take place in vacuum, on the contrary, they are used in

communities which are also in constant contact and relation with each other (Deumert &

Vandenbussche, 2003b; Finegan, 1998). They are almost never stable and affected by each

other; thus, some influences as well as changes might occur in between those languages (Stuart-

Smith & Timmins, 2010).Moreover, some languages become stronger while some languages

diminish or even die due to various sociological reasons (Baugh, 2011). Correspondingly, in

most situations this change takes place as a result of the effect of majority language towards the

minority language. To put it differently, the majority population, thus their language pressures

both the community and the language to change and this change is mostly downwards (Milroy,

2004), for instance, English pressures Pennsylvania German of the Amish society. Various

factors may affect this change, thus a wide sociolinguistic analysis is required to understand

what happens and why it happens. In the same vein, understanding the various dimensions of

bilingual education is not much different in terms of sociolinguistic point of view, if any at all

(Lightbown & Spada, 2001). Thus, a considerable amount of effort should be made to depict

these phenomena.

Who are the Amish?

The Amish are among the early Germanic folks who moved to William Penn's woods,

or Pennsylvania. Their origin dates back to the late seventeenth century and to the Anabaptist

movement which caused the rise of some Christian communities (Hostetler, 1993). Some of the

distinguished of these communities were the Mennonites of the Netherlands, the Hutterites of

Austria, and the Swiss Brethren (Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert, & Leap, 2009). The origins of the

Amish go back to a Swiss group, named after Elder Jacob Ammann (in 1697), who insisted on

conserving traditions and separation from the outside world far more than other Anabaptist

groups. When they first immigrated to U.S. in the eighteenth century, they first settled in Berks,

Chester, and Lancaster counties in southeastern Pennsylvania. Hostetler (1993) defines them

as: “a sacred society,’ a ‘familistic society,’ as maintaining ‘organic solidarity,’ an ‘integrative

social system,’ ‘primary’ (face-to-face) rather than ‘secondary’ relationships, and ‘Apollonian’

instead of ‘Dionysian’ orientations to life” (p. 4). All in all, they are merely a group of

immigrants isolated from the outside community they are living within.

The Amish are “a church-community, a community whose members practice simple

and ‘austere’ living, a conservative branch of Christianity, a family-oriented labor-intensive

economic system” (Hostetler, 1993). Their present life is argued to be still shaped by the faith

and struggle of their European past. Correspondingly, Knabb and Vogt (2011) point out: “The

Old Order Amish are a unique North American Christian subculture, using horse and buggy for

transportation, dressing in plain clothes, resisting modern technology, and striving to remain

separate from the world” (p. 290). Moreover, to some extend the Amish can be considered as a

little commonwealth since their members are ruled by the law of love and redemption. Besides,

they are highly sensitive to each other's needs. They insist on living in friendly and peaceful

world and would rather “move to other lands rather than take up arms or defend themselves”

(Hostetler, Huntington, & Hostetler, 1992). In the same vein, Hostetler (1993) points out: “The

Amish are a church, a community, a spiritual union, a conservative branch of Christianity, a

religion, a community whose members practice simple and austere living, a familistic

entrepreneuring system, and an adaptive human community” (p. 4). However, the strength of

the Amish community cannot be explained simply by the stability of tradition. There are many

Language Shift and Maintenance in a Diglossia Environment with Its Educational Implications:

A Case Study

3

social bonds: religious, historic, linguistic, economic, family, and kinship in addition to

personal commitment to the faith (Stinner, Paoletti, & Stinner, 1989). There are mainly two

groups of Amish: the Swartzentruber and Old Order Amish, the former to be the more

conservative while the latter to be the majority group. Furthermore, various other scholars

mention some other types of Amish such as Nebraska, New Order, New New Order, Andy

Weaver as other types of Amish (Hurst & McConnell, 2010; Tharp, 2007).

All the Amish people, wherever they live, speak three distinctive languages. Their

household speech is a dialect called Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch. (“Dutch”

derives from Deutsch, meaning German, and does not refer to the language of The Netherlands).

The dialect is the first language Amish children learn, and it was the language spoken by

German-speaking immigrants. Second, the Amish learn to read, write, and speak English in

school and without interference from their language influence. Third, they acquire a passive

knowledge of High German, which they use to conduct their sermons and formal ceremonies,

by reading the Bible and by recitation (Fishman, 1988; Hostetler, 1993; Stinner, Paoletti, &

Stinner, 1989). Thus, reading and/or literacy does not match with today’s psycholinguistic

(Goodman, 1967) aspect of reading which implies and focuses on comprehension of the text

rather than simply reciting or reading aloud of the texts without any implication of

comprehension (Foster & Purves, 1996).

Diglossia

Numerous definitions of diglossia have been suggested within the relevant literature.

When people use two languages they are considered as bilinguals; however, diglossia (from

French diglossie) is a term which is coined by Ferguson (1959) is used when two languages or

language varieties exist in a community and each one is used for different purposes and the

majority of that community is bilingual (Richards & Schmidt, 2013). The terms were coined

by Ferguson (1959) to describe the use of two dialects of Arabic in Egypt; Qur’an Arabic which

is used in written communication and the Egyptian Arabic in daily life. Conjointly, McKay

(2005, p. 284) summarizes the concept as follows:

The term diglossia was first coined by Ferguson (1959) to describe a context in which

two varieties of the same language are used by people of that community for different purposes.

Normally one variety, termed the high or H variety, is acquired in an educational context and

used by the community in more formal domains such as in churches or universities. The other

variety, termed, the low or L variety, is acquired in the home and used in informal domains like

the home or social center to communicate with family and friends. As examples of diglossia,

Ferguson points to situations like the use of classical and colloquial Arabic in Egypt or the use

of Standard German and Swiss German in Switzerland.

Later, Fishman (1972) extended the term diglossia to express the use of two separate

languages one of which is used for formal purposes and the other is for informal purposes within

one country rather than limiting it to the use of two different dialects of the same language.

Accordingly, McKay (2005) highlights the Singapore case as: “For example, in Singapore,

English is generally used in education and government, whereas Hokkien, Malay, and Tamil

are frequently used in the home and community” (p. 284). Moreover, Snyder (2002) draws

attention to the modern world’s diglossia in Egypt context as, “the predominance of English on

the Internet in Egypt is due to a variety of factors and corresponds to the broad use of English

in other business and technological domains in the country. However, a diglossia exists in

online communication in Egypt, with people using English in more formal e-mail

communications and a combination of English and Egyptian colloquial Arabic in informal e-



4

mail messages and online chats” (p. 68). Thus, the definition of diglossia seems to have gained

new aspects.

On the other hand, with the advent of internet, the media of communication have also

changed in a considerable degree which affected all walks of life. After Grabe and Kaplan’s

(1986) assertion that the 85% of data on the internet was in English, the world and the internet

have also changed in a certain degree. Warschauer (2004) claims that the dominance of English

on the internet is going to vanish and the status quo will change in certain amount, however, he

asserts although there will be a great decrease in the number of web pages presented in English,

it will still remain valid in certain aspects which, he believes, will create a kind of diglossia,

maybe as in the Egyptian case. This might and most probably is also related with the Lingua

Franca role of English worldwide (Seidlhofer, 2005); however, the discussion is beyond the

scope of this paper. Warschauer (2004) further argues: “it is suggested that a much higher

percentage of the commercial web pages will be in English. A present indication of this trend

is the large percentage of English language secure servers used for Internet commerce (see the

discussion in The Default Language, 1999). This will create a situation of diglossia, where

people using their native languages for local or regional communication and commerce use

English for international communication and commerce on the Internet” (p. 17). The situation

today seems mainly similar to what Warschauer depicted earlier; every single of the world

brands offer English version of their web pages along with their native language. Many people

today use English to communicate with people from various parts of the world in online

domains (Warschauer, Said, & Zohry, 2002).

Diglossia in the Amish Context

Amish society is considered mainly as a typical example of diglossia in that English is

associated "with the business world, society and worldliness ... everything outside our church

and community, the forces that have become dangerous because they make inroads into our

churches and lure people from the faith" (Johnson-Weiner, 1997, p. 67) and Pennsylvania

Dutch/German which is used for intra-group communication. Moreover, Huffines (1997)

asserts that the Amish once were trilingual: “The Amish are generally viewed as trilingual,

using a variety of Standard German in their liturgical life, English with outsiders in their

business life, and Pennsylvania German in their more intimate family and community life” (p.

53). Thus, a mention of “triglossia” in the Amish community would not be unwise when the

Standard German/Amish High German, which is used only in the church and religious rituals,

is taken into account.

From diglossic perspective Baker (2011, p. 66) illustrates the situation with a table and the

Amish context is adapted and/or applied in that taxonomy. Since there are some concepts that

do not fit with the Amish context, the Amish specific form of the table is presented below.

CONTEXT

MAJORITY LANGUAGE

(H)

MINORITY LANGUAGE

(L)

1. The home and family Pennsylvania Dutch/German

2. Schooling

English


A Case Study

5

3. Mass media and internet English (although it is

difficult to mention high

technology use within the

Amish community.

4.Business and commerce English Pennsylvania Dutch/German

5. Social and cultural

activity in the

community

Pennsylvania Dutch/German

6.Email, messaging and

texting with friends

Since there are no recent

studies available we can

only assume that they are

going to use Pennsylvania

Dutch/ German

7 Correspondence with

government departments

English

8 Religious activity Standard German/Amish

High German

The Amish adapted version (Hostetler, 1993; Huffines, 1997; Johnson-Weiner, 1997; Louden,

1997) of the table (Baker, 2011, p. 66)

Extending the concept of diglossia, developed by Ferguson (1959), Fishman (1972) uses

the term bilingualism for the dual language command of the individual and the term diglossia

to characterize the social allocation of functions to different languages or varieties. Thus, in

multilingual or bilingual societies four possible patterns can be recognized:

(1) both diglossia and bilingualism

(2) bilingualism without diglossia

(3) diglossia without bilingualism

(4) neither diglossia nor bilingualism. (as cited in Stern, 1991, p. 232)

In the first pattern within a community there will be both individual bilingualism and

community diglossia which means almost all of the members of the community will be

bilingual and use both the majority and minority languages for certain purposes such as either

in formal or informal situations. This situation depicts the Amish society very well in that the

Amish use “English with outsiders in their business life and Pennsylvania German in their more

intimate family and community life” (Huffines, 1997, p. 53).

The second pattern is bilingualism without diglossia. In this situation both communities

are bilingual and there is no restriction in using either of the languages. In such situations, it is

expected that the majority language will gain dominance and force the minority language to

vanish through time. It is also believed that the contrary version is only possible in undeveloped

societies. Romaine (2002) points out: “a minority language can survive only through separation

from a modern world and by remaining undeveloped” (p. 139). This is what happens in the



6

Amish context as a conservative and close society. However, even in such a conservative

society, though the relentless efforts to protect their home language and identity the diminishing

effect of the majority language; English, is unavoidable. In a similar vein, Huffines (1997)

points out: “English, in contrast to both German and Pennsylvania German, is increasing its

functionality in Amish communities, as it has among nonplain Pennsylvania Germans, and

continues to exert an accelerating linguistic influence on Pennsylvania German, both directly

and indirectly” (p. 53). Thus, bilingualism without diglossia can take place in some societies.

The third pattern is diglossia without bilingualism. In this kind of situation there will be

two languages within a country or a particular region. Two groups of people will use two

different languages. Baker (2011) points out: “This tends to be a theoretical case, with few, if

any, strong examples. Historically, in a colonial situation, a ruling power group might speak

the 'high' language, with the larger less powerful group speaking only the 'low' language. For

example, English (e.g. in India) or French (e.g. in Haiti) were spoken by the ruling elite, with

the indigenous language(s) spoken by the masses” (p. 68). Also the Kurdish language in some

parts of the south-east region of Turkey can be given as an example, where only the Kurdish

people can speak Kurdish but have to learn Turkish because it is the official language and

spoken by the society living in Turkey.

The fourth pattern neither diglossia nor bilingualism is defined by Baker (2011) as: “One

example is where a linguistically diverse society has been forcibly changed to a relatively

monolingual society. In Cuba and the Dominican Republic, the native languages have been

exterminated. A different example would be a small speech community using its minority

language for all functions and insisting on having no relationship with the neighboring majority

language” (p. 69). All in all, it is a quite rare situation.

Language shift and Language Maintenance

Most, if not all, of the languages in the world have been in constant flux (Chambers,

2002; Tharp, 2007). Perennially, as well grounded in the literature, languages are said to be

living organisms like humans, as they are intermingled with them; they are born, grown

(spread), get older, and eventually die although not all of them (Harrison, 2008). It is obvious

that there is some change inevitable in language(s). When one takes a brief look at the written

works of his/her language or society published a few decades earlier, s/he can easily see that

some words or structures are not familiar, if not odd. Notwithstanding, this change is quite slow

in written medium of language. What’s more, the change can take place in various forms: fast,

slow or downwards or upwards. This language change, also called “language shift”, refers to a

downwards movement. By the same token, Baker (2011) points out: “there is a reduction in the

number of speakers of a language, a decreasing saturation of language speakers in the

population, a loss in language proficiency, or a decreasing use of that language in different

domains. The outcome of language shift is called language death, although a language could be

revived from recordings (oral and written)” (p. 72). However, this does not mean that all the

minority languages are doomed to vanish or eventually die. On the contrary, some languages

can resurrect or revive even if they die (Ottósson, 1987, Pavlenko, 2008). Moreover, some

languages like English may spread as a Lingua Franca (Seidlhofer, 2005) or even some minority

languages can maintain their existence in specific domains such as at home, school or for

religious purposes like Pennsylvania German/ Dutch or High German in the Amish case.

Conklin and Lourie (1983) highlight various political, social and demographic factors

that affect language maintenance and shift. Before any further discussion, it would be wise to

reiterate that these criteria do not, present all the factors that affect such a complex phenomenon

“language shift/change” and this list particularly refers to immigrants rather than minorities


A Case Study

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which is one of the reasons that this list is cited in this study can be righteously discussed within

the Amish context in the U.S. However, even in that context all the factors are not enough to

explicate the complex structure of the Amish context in the U.S., thus they do not conform in a

one-to-one fashion with the characteristics of the Amish society.

Conklin and Lourie’s (1983) inexhaustive list encompasses a vast number of factors that

affect language maintenance or shift and/or loss. Political and social factors are listed such as

the number of speakers living closely or dispersed, recent and continuing immigration or long

and stable residence, access or proximity to the homeland and society, occupational shift or

stability, the degree of social and economic mobility, the degree of education affecting the

loyalty or alienation to the language community, adaptation into ethnic group identity or

identity of the majority language. Moreover, cultural factors also are mainly listed as the

existence of mother tongue institutions, the language used in the cultural and religious

ceremonies, components other language per se that affect ethnic identity maintenance,

nationalistic aspirations, attachment to identity and ethnicity regarding the mother tongue, the

degree of emphasis on family and community ties, the degree of emphasis on minority language

and ethnic awareness, the degree of similarity between mother tongue and majority language

in terms of culture and religion. Last but not least, linguistic factors such as the existence of a

written form of the mother tongue, the ease at the use of the alphabet that makes literacy

common, the difficulty in the writing system that makes literacy common and widespread, the

international status of the mother tongue, the degree of literacy or illiteracy in the home land,

the degree of tolerance to the loan word from the majority language. All these factors in the list

affect the degree of language shift and/or maintenance within the bilingual or diglossic

community.

It would be better to restate that these criteria affecting language shift are not an end per

se; however, they can be considered as a significant effort to present a general framework.

Nonetheless, there are various other factors such as economic, social structural,

sociolinguistical, political that affect language shift and not cited here. In the same vein, Baker

(2011) also points out: “While such factors help clarify what affects language shift, the relative

importance of these factors is debatable and still unclear” (p. 75). Thus, no single one of these

factors can be asserted to have more importance than the other.

Certainly, a good many otherwise viable further hypothesis are presented by various

other scholars with regards to language maintenance and shift/loss. In line with these

arguments, however, some of the criteria discussed with particular reference to the Amish

context, as well as the “Three Generation Shift” a term first coined by Garcia and Diaz (1992,

p. 14) do not conform with the Amish society. Accordingly, Garcia and Diaz (1992) make a

situational analysis of the U.S. immigrant societies and put forward that these immigrants are

exposed to a “three generation shift”. Hence, Garcia and Diaz (1992) point out:

Most US immigrant groups have experienced a language shift to English as a

consequence of assimilation into American life. The first-generation immigrants sustain their

native or first language while learning English. The second generation, intent upon assimilation

into a largely English-speaking community, begin the shift towards English by using the native

language with first generation speakers (parents, grandparents, others) and English in more

formal settings. By slow degrees, English is used in contexts once reserved for the first

language. Encroachment of English into the domain of the first language serves to destabilize

the native language. (p. 14)

According to Three Generation Shift Theory, the speakers of the third generation quit

using their homeland language and the shift is completed when all the speakers quit using their

homeland. However, this theory is not an end per se and can hardly be generalized though it



8

puts forward a clear framework for language shift. There is ample evidence that there are some

communities which provide a contrary sample to this theory. To illustrate, the Greeks living in

Pittsburg who try to preserve their Greek language, with a written form, managed to decelerate

their language shift process and prolong their Greek language survival (Paulston, 1994). In the

same vein, Huffines (1987) mentions the Amish as another contrary example to this theory:

“Plain Pennsylvania German (referred to here merely as Pennsylvania German or PG) has had

unusual longevity for an immigrant language in the United States and has far outlived the

pattern that is reported for many minority languages of language shift by the third generation”

(p. 38). Moreover, Baker (2011) also draws attention: “the Pennsylvania Amish historically

avoided a three or four generation shift by retaining boundaries between them and the outside

world” (p. 76). They have survived their language and identity even more than four generations.

What’s more, Thomas (1996) remarks: “With the exception of self-isolating groups such as the

Old Order Amish and the Yiddish-speaking Hasidim, ethnolinguistic minorities in the U.S. have

been shown to lose their mother tongue by the second or third generation in this country” (p.

134). Correspondingly, Huffines (1987) seems to have predicted their resistance to

assimilation: “In comparison with other immigrant languages in the United States,

Pennsylvania German has enjoyed a relatively long history despite earlier predictions of its

imminent total assimilation. It would be a rather simplistic view to argue once again that

Pennsylvania German will die out within the next few generations. It is clear that the language

is being vigorously maintained within the Old Order communities, and there is at present no

indication of its demise in the near future” (p. 353). All in all, offering a comprehensive

depiction of the phenomenonis likely to be an inherently difficult endeavor.

Various reasons behind the survival of the Amish: their language and identity can be

listed here, if not many of them have already been listed above. However, in line with Conklin

and Lourie’s (1983) taxonomy, the following reasons can be counted as setting up the general

framework of the reasons as an inexhaustive list adapted from Baker (2011) and Huffines

(1987):

1. People are not only bilingual, but also diglossic.

2. No contact with outside/ a close society

3. Strong religious beliefs that prevent them from interacting with majority language speakers.

4. Stability in occupation.

It is difficult to explain the success of language and identity maintenance of the Amish with

one single reason, there is ample evidence that it is a multifaceted phenomenon.

Language Shift in Pennsylvania German

Like all the minority languages within a diglossia environment, the Amish language

could not avoid the influence, if not invasion, of English language in the U.S. (Stuart-Smith &

Timmins, 2010). Although the Amish are a very close and conservative society and have taken

many precautions to preserve and strengthen their language, thus identity, yet they could not

avoid this outer influence in their language (Kraybill & Nolt, 1994). Even their Parochial

Schools in which Amish traditions and language use are enforced could not be enough to remain

unaffected from the surrounding society and language. By the same token, Huffines (1997)

points out:


A Case Study

9

The family and community, both of which safeguard Pennsylvania German language

use by imposing and enacting sociolinguistic norms, have not prevented the erosion of linguistic

forms or the on-going functional loss in Pennsylvania German. English, in contrast to both

German and Pennsylvania German, is increasing its functionality in Amish communities, as it

has among nonplain Pennsylvania Germans, and continues to exert an accelerating linguistic

influence on Pennsylvania German, both directly and indirectly (p. 54).

However, in her study Fuller (1999) draws attention to the fact that even if without the

significant influence of English, Pennsylvania German was doomed to certain degree of change

as follows: “While English clearly plays a role in the real-life drama of the development of PG

[Pennsylvania German], it is the role of best supporting actress rather than the leading lady” (p.

53). Furthermore, Tharp (2007) takes the argument to a further step and asserts: “Amish culture,

like all culture, is in constant flux. While this might surprise the romantic American

imagination, the Amish condition is marked by a constant struggle to remain separate from

worldliness, while regularly accepting compromise: ‘‘Oh, there are some things you gonna have

to change with. The world keeps moving; you have to make some changes” (p. 51). The

implications from the discussion suggest that even Amish society was exposed to a certain

degree of language shift.

Like any other minority language, Pennsylvania German is mostly influenced by the

American English in its phonology, morphology, lexicon, syntax (Baker, 2011; Hostetler,

1993). Firstly, the least influence of American English on Amish Pennsylvania German is on

phonological aspect. The Amish seem to have adopted the American retroflexive /r/ and it is

apparent in daily usage of language as well as in the pronunciation of German hymns and Bible

readings (Baker, 2011; Hostetler, 1993; Huffines, 1997). The fact that underlying voiced stops

are devoiced when occuring in syllable-final position can be suggested as another aspect of

phonological change in the Amish Pennsylvania German due to the influence of American

English (Huffines, 1997). Secondly, with regards to lexicon, as is in any other minority

language, mostly loan words seem to have contributed to this language shift paradigm. Thirdly,

one of the most outstanding changes in syntactical structure is the use of dative case (Fuller,

1999). In the same vein, Huffines (1997) also puts forward: “Compared to nonplain native

speakers of Pennsylvania German, the use of the dative case in Amish Pennsylvania German

has practically vanished” (p.55). However, as Louden (1997) points out there are some areas

that resisted to change: “it is clearly limited to three areas of syntactic structure, case,

tense/aspect and infinitival complementation... One major area, however, is interesting for the

fact that it has remained clearly resistant to change, and that is word order” (p. 87). The

influence of American English on Pennsylvania German is obvious while it is evident that not

all aspects are influenced at the same degree.

On the other hand, although some authors further claimed that the verb system in

Pennsylvania German might have changed without the influence of American English, it is

apparent that the contact with the American English seems to have great influence on the

increase in the amount and rate of change as well as determining the direction of the change.

The changes occurred mainly in expressing duration, expressing iteration, use of infinitive

marking (Louden, 1997; Huffines, 1997).

All of the expansions discussed in this section indicate changes in the direction of an

English model. Contact influence occurs not only at the level of borrowed items which become

integrated into Pennsylvania German, but the influence operates on the underlying grammatical

rules themselves.



10

How Could the Amish Maintain Their Language and Identity?

Numerous reasons lay behind the maintenance of Pennsylvania German and the Amish

identity can be suggested. However, the main factor that enables the Amish to protect their

identity and culture is that they want to and do isolate themselves from the outer world which,

they believe, otherwise will spoil their own world (Hostetler, 1993). They have to use English

for communication with the outer world from which they want to isolate themselves. They also

use the Pennsylvania German which is not a written language (Fuller, 1999; Huffines, 1980).

Thus, English is the primary medium for all written communication within the Amish

community and with the Amish elsewhere. Moreover, if they cannot speak English they can

only communicate with people face to face only in Pennsylvania German. Here rises a question:

in spite of all these factors, how can they instruct or learn English and keep the outer world,

which they want to isolate from, at bay? They found the solution in an attempt to counterbalance

this outside world affect by placing English instruction in an Amish context: The Amish

Parochial school (Knabb, Vogt, & Newgren, 2011).

Education in the Amish: The Swartzentruber Amish Parochial School

The Swartzentruber Amish is one of the most conservative of all Amish settlements in

that Johson-Weiner (1997) names them “ultra-conservative”. They, like all the other Amish

communities, try to isolate from the outside English world. Moreover, the Swartzentruber

Amish do not make use of even school buses, so there are a number of one-room school houses

which lack electricity, telephone service, and in-door plumbing (Hostetler, 1993; Hurst &

McConnell, 2010).

The materials used in the Swartzentruber Amish school: The McGuffey's Readers and

1919 Essentials of Spelling, present a language and world that is no longer in use. Accordingly,

Johson-Weiner (1997) depicts the situation as follows: “Using turn-of-the-century texts,

children in Swartzentruber Amish parochial schools memorize vocabulary words and sentence

structures which are no longer used in everyday American conversation; learning an English

no longer spoken by their non-Amish neighbors’” and further argues, “not only is the language

of the readers and spellers often arcane, but also the English community presented in the stories,

pictures, and exercises vanished nearly a century ago” (p. 70). Moreover, some other books

such as “Pathway, Schoolaid, and Study Time” in addition to McGuffey’s Readers are reported

(Hurst & McConnell, 2010) to be used by some school teachers.

Methodology in Parochial Schools and its learning outcomes

The quality of education in these Parochial schools is not considered as good, put it

differently, public schools are considered superior to these schools in academics due to various

reasons such as the outdated content and language instruction as well as lack of a uniform

curriculum (Hurst & McConnell, 2010). Another reason can be suggested is that literacy and

reading practices within the Parochial school are not close to modern reading instruction

practices in the classroom (Hyland, 2006). The students are expected to read aloud the texts,

spell them correctly, memorize words and sentences in the classroom with less focus on

meaning, if there is any at all. However, in some situations even the teachers may not know

some of the words. Accordingly, Johnson-Weiner (1997) highlights: “a Swartzentruber teacher

admitted not knowing what all the words meant and that she picked only words she knew for


A Case Study

11

the sentence exercises; ‘otherwise’, she said, ‘I wouldn't know what the sentence means” (p.

70). In line with these, the situation is quite similar with Saudi context in which oral reading of

texts highly praised due to cultural and religious reasons (Alshumaimeri, 2011) and similar with

many other Asian cultures in which memorization is a commonly taught practice or strategy

(Hyland, 2006; Larsen-Freeman, 2011). Thus, the practices of literacy do not match with the

industrialized western society’s concept of literacy which encompasses the psycholinguistic

aspects of reading (Goodman, 1967) and emphasizes ultimately comprehending the texts rather

than vocalizing them out (Foster & Purves, 1996).

The content of the curriculum belongs more to an outdated and isolated world of the

Amish themselves. Even the teachers who attempt to change the curriculum or the books are

discouraged either by the school board or parents (Hurst & McConnell, 2010). Moreover,

Johnson-Weiner (1997) asserts: “The children learn about a world they will never find outside

their community in which the virtues such as hard work, thriftiness, and faith in God are

extolled” (p. 70). Thus, this outdated curriculum, though does not match current Western

literacy concept, are widely used within the Amish Parochial Schools and are believed to help

them keep their language and identity safe from the outer influence, thus intact.

An Alternative Bilingual Education Approach: The Amish World in English

Compared to the Swartzentruber Amish, Old Order Amishare not considered as that

much conservative in that they use different school materials and practices. Though still far and

isolated from the outside world, “The texts employed by the Old Orders to teach English

provide a more subtle means of reinforcing the boundaries between the community and the

surrounding English society” (Johnson-Weiner, 1997, p. 68). Moreover, Old Order Amish

prefer to use mainly The Pathway Series (Hostetler, 1993). The series depict a more

contemporary world compared to McGuffey Readers while reflecting solely the world of Amish

which contributes, they belive, to the isolation and protection from the detrimental effects of

the outside world. The readers offer pictures and stories so much from the Amish world that

“Some of the Amish object to having too much of their way of life in print” (Hostetler, 1993,

p. 369). However, akin to the other The McGuffey's Readers, Pathway Series, too, focus on and

emphasize good morals: thrift, purity, honesty, love, and cooperation.

The McGuffey's Readersor Pathway Series are used through generations. Some teachers

can and mostly prefer to use the books that they used when they were students (Hurst &

McConnell, 2010). By using the same books throughout generations, thus emphasizing the

same values, they believe they can protect their identity better and bonds within the community

are strengthened. However, despite the fact that Pathway Readers seem to be better than The

McGuffey’s Readers with respect to the modern education system and literacy practices, they

are not bereft of problems. Firstly, although the language of the world is useful and

contemporary, they are excerpts from books no longer published and even dating back earlier

than 1950 even to 1860s. Another thing to be considered about Pathway is although illustrated,

the Pathway Readers contain illustrations and images from farm life deprived of technology

with no pictures of people. Furthermore, they are loaded with too much war stories as well as

political and patriotic stories (Johnson-Weiner, 1997). Thusly, Pathway seems to provide a

more contemporary aspect of life compared to the McGuffey’s Readers, albeit limited with

merely the Amish life.

In conclusion, the Amish children appear to succeed acquiring English and the linguistic

skills they need to interact with the English world, whether they use McGuffey's Readersor the

Pathway Series. However, their main aim is to protect and strengthen the Amish identity and



12

culture in the young generations, not to be exposed to “three generation shift” (Garcia & Diaz,

1992).

Conclusion

In this study, an attempt has been made to cover as much ground as possible with regards

to bilingualism, diglossia, language maintenance and language shift as well as their educational

implications. However, in a paper of this kind, it might not be possible to accommodate all

aspects. All in all, the Old Order Amish, comprising 95% of Amish groups, can be identified

by their use of a horse and buggy for transportation and by their plain dress, resistance to

modernity, and separation from the world (Cates & Graham, 2002; Kraybill, 2001). Their

lifestyle has been a very interesting subject not only for layman but also for the studies of social

sciences and positive sciences. Although various factors have been elaborated in this study,

how they have managed to protect their Amish identity and culture still embraces some

mysteries. Along with their tremendous efforts to isolate themselves from the outer world,

English speaking society, the fact that they are both bilingual and diglossic seems to have helped

them protect their identity and culture without being exposed to “three generation shift” (Garcia

& Diaz, 1992). By the same token, Huffines (1987) points out: “Speech communities of the Old

Orders are diglossic: each language in the speaker's repertoire fulfills a separate function. In

this case, Pennsylvania German is used within the family and community; English is used at

school and in discourse with outsiders. The allocation of functions also seems to keep the

language codes separate” (p. 363). Thus, they could have prolonged their ethnic identity for a

lot more than three generations. However, it is impossible to stay without any change in a world

of constant flux (Tharp, 2007). Thus, the Amish have been also affected and have changed with

regards to preserving their identity and culture through time (Knabb, Vogt, & Newgren, 2011).

Moreover, the change or shift is not limited with culture and identity but can be seen in the

language (Pennsylvania German) they used. Correspondingly, there is long-standing evidence

for linguistic transfer from outside English to Pennsylvania German with regards to surface

forms and underlying structures as well as selective displacement of Pennsylvania German by

English in communicative situations (Huffines, 1997).

The change in the Amish i.e., linguistic change or assimilation is relatively less in

comparison with the other immigrant societies in the U.S. Thus, by preserving their language,

identity and culture the Amish continue to be receiving a high degree of appreciation and

curiosity. However, the available research on the Amish society does not belong to very recent

times. Moreover, what is discussed here can only shed a light on the ongoing process of their

change at these specific times. Thus, more research is required to analyze and evaluate the

current situation of their immigrant, bilingual, diglossic characteristics.

By and large, language change is inevitable either in a bilingual or diglossic situation.

There is ample evidence that a total isolation or so-called purification in language seems

impossible. To achieve such a task requires extra-ordinary processes to take place. Due to the

very nature of people as social beings, there is always some kind of communication and

interaction between people whose natural outcome is the interaction and transaction between

the languages. In the same vein, either from the majority language towards the minority

language or vice versa some exchange between the languages is expected. Furthermore,

scholars have suggested and documented various reasons in countless studies for these changes.

However, available literature seems to fail to provide a comprehensive and satisfactory

explanation with regards to the nature and possible reasons for this utterly complex

phenomenon. Thus, it is suggested that further research in various bilingual and diglossic


A Case Study

13

environments regarding their linguistic and educational implications would be of great help to

provide a comprehensive and satisfactory explanation.

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Language Shift and Maintenance in a Diglossia Environment